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You know Chinese New Year is around the corner when the weather turns scorching hot and unbearable! It’s so hot that even Rooney, official pet number one can’t take it, lying down in the oddest position at the garden terrace to stay comfortable!

Rooney, official pet number one also known as Senior Citizen, has become one quirky fella. Signs of old age or asserting his number one status by doing things his way? Lately, he has taken to venturing through the house as a short cut to head to the garden. He would do this several trips in a day especially when we are home.

And most times, he would pause midway and just sploot on the marble floor, forgetting his original intention of the passage. This creates a mess in the living room because of his excessive shedding and drooling but he doesn’t understand; he would just chill if the desire to make it further does not appeal.

Typically the sploot is associated with Corgis, and our English Bulldog is no different; he just loves to sploot too. Maybe this position is comfortable for him as he has short legs too. I suspect he loves the coolness of the marble floor when he lays flat on his belly and his short hind legs stretches out behind him.

We have stopped getting upset about the mess because he is getting older, and being a Senior Citizen, we close an eye or two to the situation.

The poor birds are hungry no more! We went in search of bird seeds yesterday during our lunch break. Hubby remembered a shop that we have drove past before but never frequented and what a bargain we stumbled upon.

For a mere eight Ringgit (equivalent to two US Dollars), he bought two kilos worth of bird seeds. Two kilos! That’s a lot of bird seeds. Looks like our garden party for the birds (sometimes dubbed Soup Kitchen for the Birds) will be quite happening for the next few months.

We ran out of bird seeds and the poor visiting birds have not been fed the last three days. To make matters worse, we have not had the time to replenish the seeds yet the birds still keep coming, hoping and wanting. I guess when life is made easier, they keep trying their luck.

Thoughtfully, M2 gave them rice grains the last two days, something better than nothing. And the birds will have to make do with this choice until we do go buy more bird seeds.

I’ve decided to not replenish my gum ball machine because last week, I found some intruders helping themselves to my last batch of M&Ms. It was gross.

Put it this way, I spotted some nibble trails on several pieces and this led me to discover four unwanted tiny intruders inside the gum ball machine amidst the M&Ms. Ewwwww… Where they’d come from I don’t know because they certainly weren’t there prior.

It has become an ongoing joke between hubby and I on the subject of birds (and owls), with me labelling his troop as citizens too.

As you know, my Citizens are my owl carvings for the imaginary township of Gigglesville. And his citizens are the visiting birds who would come by the garden daily to be fed.

Every evening when we return from work, all the citizens await – mine in their tray, his at the garden. As my citizen count grows with an addition almost every night, so does his count too!

It is now more than Fat Bird, Bird 3 and Bird 4; it’s a whole flock of all sizes, big and small! I would poke fun at him that his citizens are awaiting, being so demanding, constantly wanting to be fed unlike mine, so docile and not demanding at all.

His citizens are also very territorial. Each time he has the bird seeds out, they would ‘fight’ especially the pair that comes down to the ground, pushing and shoving whilst pecking away. While this is ongoing, my citizens are just chilling and being cute, living harmoniously together without any in-fighting.

Not too long ago, a friend posted an adorable picture on Facebook which showed a cute little door at the foot of a tree for the neighborhood squirrels. She befittingly named them Mr and Mrs Squirrel, the squirrels that is, not the neighbor. Who made the door, she wasn’t sure but I thought it was adorable and got me thinking.

We already have a bird house for the visiting birds but no ‘home’ set up for the visiting squirrels. And since we have a frangipani tree in our garden, why not—just for fun—make a door just like that posting so that Sammy and Lefty (that’s the name I call our visiting squirrels) can feel more at home.

Maybe I should divert to this if I am still stuck for inspiration for a new Gigglesville’s citizen?

Birds come in pairs, along with it, a spare. We have Fat Bird and the pair, Bird 1 and Bird 2, visiting us daily plus some other little ones.

Because they are a pair, Bird 1 and Bird 2 feels that Bird 3 who tags along with them is a third wheel and most times, they bully the poor fella. This behavior is most evident when jostling for food at the garden. They wouldn’t give it a chance to eat, so poor Bird 3 is always left hungry.

One evening, it was raining and we spotted Bird 3, sitting sadly on the tree, braving the rain. We anticipated it was waiting for a chance to come down to the ground to eat as Bird 1 and Bird 2 was nowhere to be seen.

Luckily when the rain subsided, Bird 3 descended onto the garden and managed to eat to its heart’s content. Thank goodness otherwise if the pair showed up, the opportunity would be gone and poor Bird 3 would be left starving again.